Product details

ABC Classics is proud to announce the Australian premiere
recording of Polaris - Voyage for Orchestra by cutting-edge
British composer Thomas Adès. Recorded live in concert by the
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Markus
Stenz, this major work from one of the top composers of our time
is now available as part of the MSO Live series.

Polaris, says Adès, explores the use of star constellations for
navigation across the oceans, and the emotional navigation
between the absent sailors and what they leave behind. The music
is derived from a magnetic series, a musical device created by
Adès and heard here for the first time: all the notes of the
scale are gradually presented, but persistently return home to an
anchoring pitch, as if magnetised.

Also on this disc is the world premiere recording of
award-winning Australian composer Paul Stanhope's Piccolo
Concerto. The piccolo rarely gets the chance to step into the
spotlight, but this extraordinary piece reveals it to be an
instrument capable of sweetness and poetry as well as strength
and agility. The concerto's first movement explores in music the
theme of compassion in the face of hostility; the second is a
wild, high-spirited dance celebrating the speed of the
information age. With conductor Benjamin Northey and piccolo
soloist Andrew Macleod, it was an electrifying night in the
concert hall, and ABC Classics is thrilled to make it available
now on CD.